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Under communicative approach, authenticity has gradually been integrated in foreign language classrooms, which has also happened to firstyear students studying in Faculty of Language Teacher Education (FELTE) in University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS). An obscure example for this is their English course outlines with more involvement of authentic tasks and materials. However, while previous researchers emphasize the role of leaner authenticity, this matter is rather overshadowed in recent studies in ULIS. To fill in this gap, a research on FELTE firstyear students perceptions of English authentic listening materials (EALM) was conducted. This paper investigated the perceptions of 26 firstyear FELTE mainstream students selected by convenience sampling method. Three instruments namely journals, questionnaires and semistructured interviews were employed to collect data which were analyzed by qualitative and quantitiative methods. The results showed that nearly 90% of the participants like being exposed to EALM in their classrooms and their most favourite types of EALM were songs, movies, cartoons and quiz shows. Different opinions about EALMs advantages and disadvantages were also gathered, in which students showed high levels of agreement with all suggested benefits but seemed to be neutral about EALMs disadvantages, except for EALMs inefficiency in language improvement which was generally disagreed. This paper also drew out some factors to consider when choosing EALM and included some unanticipated expectations of students towards EALM exploitation in classrooms. Finally, implications about EALMs position and suggested ways to select and apply EALM in classrooms were remarked for more effective authenticity integration.
ABSTRACT Under communicative approach, authenticity has gradually been integrated in foreign language classrooms, which has also happened to first-year students studying in Faculty of Language Teacher Education (FELTE) in University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS). An obscure example for this is their English course outlines with more involvement of authentic tasks and materials. However, while previous researchers emphasize the role of leaner authenticity, this matter is rather overshadowed in recent studies in ULIS. To fill in this gap, a research on FELTE first-year students' perceptions of English authentic listening materials (EALM) was conducted. This paper investigated the perceptions of 26 first-year FELTE mainstream students selected by convenience sampling method. Three instruments namely journals, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data which were analyzed by qualitative and quantitiative methods. The results showed that nearly 90% of the participants like being exposed to EALM in their classrooms and their most favourite types of EALM were songs, movies, cartoons and quiz shows. Different opinions about EALM's advantages and disadvantages were also gathered, in which students showed high levels of agreement with all suggested benefits but seemed to be neutral about EALM's disadvantages, except for EALM's inefficiency in language improvement which was generally disagreed. This paper also drew out some factors to consider when choosing EALM and included some unanticipated expectations of students towards EALM exploitation in classrooms. Finally, implications about EALM's position and suggested ways to select and apply EALM in classrooms were remarked for more effective authenticity integration. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS v PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale and statement of the problem 1 1.2 Aim of the study 2 1.3 Research questions 2 1.3 Scope of the study 2 1.4 Significance of the study 3 1.5 Methods of the study 3 1.6 Thesis structure 3 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 1.1 Materials in English language teaching 5 1.2 Authenticity and Authentic materials 6 1.2.1 Authenticity 6 1.2.1.1 Definition 6 1.2.1.2 Types of authenticity 6 1.2.2 Authentic materials 7 1.2.2.1 Definition 7 1.2.2.2 Advantages of using authentic materials 8 1.2.2.3 Disadvantages of using authentic materials 11 1.2.2.4 Types of authentic materials 12 ii 1.3 Related studies on students’ perceptions of authentic materials 13 1.3.1 In the world 13 1.3.2 In Vietnam 14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Settings, participants and sampling method 17 2.1.1 Settings 17 2.1.2 Sampling method 18 2.1.3 Participants 18 2.2 Data collection method and procedure 20 2.2.1 Data collection instruments 20 2.2.1.1 Journals 20 2.2.1.2 Questionnaires 21 2.2.1.3 Interview 22 2.2.2 Data collection procedure 22 2.3 Data analysis method and procedure 24 2.3.1 Data analysis method 24 2.3.2 Data analysis procedure 24 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28 3.1 Findings 28 3.1.1 Research question 1: What are first-year students’ favourite types of English authentic listening materials? 28 3.1.2 Research question 2: What are advantages of English authentic listening materials as perceived by first-year students? 30 3.1.3 Research question 3: What are the disadvantages of English authentic listening materials as perceived by first-year students? 32 iii 3.2 Discussion 36 3.2.1 Students’ favourite types of EALM 36 3.2.2 Advantages of EALM in students’ perceptions 37 3.2.3 Disadvantages of EALM in students’ perceptions 39 3.2.4 Some worth-considering factors drawn from students’ perceptions 40 3.2.5 Other students’ expectations of EALM exploitation in ELT 42 PART 3: CONCLUSION 44 1.1 Summary of the findings 44 1.2 Implications from the findings 44 1.3 Limitations of the study 45 1.4 Suggestions for further research 46 REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES 51 APPENDIX 1: LISTENING TASK CATEGORIZATION 51 APPENDIX 2: LISTENING EXERCISES DESIGNED FOR VIDEO 4 52 APPENDIX 3: GUIDING QUESTIONS FOR JOURNAL 54 APPENDIX 4: AN ENTRY FROM STUDENTS' JOURNALS 57 APPENDIX 5: QUESTIONNAIRES 59 APPENDIX 6: TENTATIVE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 65 APPENDIX 7: AN EXTRACT FROM STUDENTS' INTERVIEW 67 iv LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS List of tables Table 1: A comparison between authentic and non-authentic language 9 Table 2: Types of authentic materials 13 Table 3: Specifications of authentic materials chosen and their follow-up exercises 19 Table 4 Coding system for contents analysis 25 Table 5: First-year students' perceptions of EALM's advantages 30 Table 6: Students' perceptions of EALM's disadvantages 33 List of figures Figure 1: Students' interest in in-class usage of English authentic listening materials 28 Figure 2: Students' favourite types of English listening authentic materials 29 List of abbreviations CFL College of Foreign Language EALM English authentic listening materials EFL English as a foreign language ELT English language teaching FELTE Faculty of English language teacher education ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University, Hanoi v PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale and statement of the problem As stated by Guariento & Morley (2001), since the mid 1970s, communicative approach has been put forward as a new orientation in language teaching, which also creates an awareness of developing students’ language skills for the real world. This has brought along a need for teachers to integrate authenticity in their EFL/ESL classrooms. To achieve this requirement, using authentic materials is considered as an appropriate choice because it helps students "refer to the contextually appropriate ways native speakers actually put the target language in use" (Feng & Byram, 2002, p.59). Taking authenticity into consideration, teachers in FELTE, ULIS has put into use a totally new design for the course outline of English language practice subjects for first-year mainstream students since the first semester of 2012. This new curriculum integrates four language skills into two subjects which are English for Social purpose and English for Academic purpose. This change is expected to provide more chances for students to not only improve their language proficiency at school but also use the language properly in real-life situations. Accordingly, more authentic materials and tasks have been added to the curriculum. One remark about authenticity is that it "is a characteristic of the relationship between the passage and the reader and has to do with appropriate response" (Widdowson, 1978, p.80), indicating that authenticity depends mainly on the perceiver's response to the passage. Specifically in EFL classrooms, this notion refers to the remarkable influence of learners' engagement since they authenticate the sources during their learning process. From this viewpoint, it can be inferred that using authentic materials in first-year FELTE classrooms is greatly affected by student's perceptions of the materials. Nevertheless, recent studies in ULIS have not paid much attention to students' perceptions of authentic materials. Especially, little research has been 1 done to address this matter for first-year mainstream students in FELTE – the first generation using the new course outline. This is the gap that the researcher expects to fill in by conducting a study on "First-year FELTE mainstream students’ perceptions of English authentic listening materials." 1.2 Aim of the study This study aims at: • Describing students’ perceptions of English authentic listening materials; and • Drawing out factors to consider when choosing English authentic listening materials to be exploited in English language practice subjects; 1.3 Research questions This study is hoped to find the answers to the following research questions: Research question 1: What are first-year students’ favourite types of English authentic listening materials? Research question 2: What are advantages of English authentic listening materials as perceived by first-year students? Research question 3: What are disadvantages of English authentic listening materials as perceived by first-year students? 1.3 Scope of the study The samples of the study were 26 first-year mainstream students in FELTE – ULIS using the new syllabus. Among various types of authentic materials, English authentic listening materials were chosen to be investigated as they covered almost all advantages and disadvantages related to linguistic features mentioned in previous studies. If the students were exposed to as many of those features as possible, their sharings would provide thorough and in-depth data for the study. 2 Besides, though students' perceptions were stated to be the focus of the whole study, the limited capacity of the paper only concerned three aspects which are students' opinions about their favourite types of EALM, EALM's advantages and EALM's disadvantages. 1.4 Significance of the study As this paper was expected to provide a valid description about students’ perceptions of authentic materials, its findings would be a reference for the teachers to consider some appropriate ways of choosing and exploiting authentic sources. Regarding students, especially the participants, this paper would provide them with new sources of material outside course books which might be effective for their own self-practice. Finally, researchers having the same concern in the topic might take some useful information from this study for their own research in the future. 1.5 Methods of the study In this research, qualitative method was mainly used to indicate students’ perceptions of EALM gathered from the journals and semi-structured interviews. However, quantitative method was also employed to point out which types of EALM were of students’ favourites and their general viewpoints towards some particular EALM's advantages and disadvantages. 1.6 Thesis structure The study is outlined with 3 parts as follows: Part 1 – Introduction This part states the research problems, the significance of the study and proposing research questions. Part 2 – Development This part comprises of three chapters. 3 Chapter 1 – Literature review – includes the explanation of key definitions as well as the review on different previous studies. Chapter 2 – Methodology – comprises of research setting, participants and sampling method; together with methods and procedure in data collection and data analysis. Chapter 3 – Findings & Discussion – presents research findings with further thorough and thoughtful discussion. Part 3 – Conclusion This last part summarizes the findings, limitation of the research, pedagogical implications and suggestion for further studies. 4 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter explains some key concepts as well as provides further synthesis and analysis of relevant theoretical viewpoints. From that review, the gap of the research is pointed out in relation to the context of the study. 1.1 Materials in English language teaching In a study about ELT materials, Oura (2003, p.66) reports there is a rather wide range of materials available to satisfy teachers’ needs. Those materials can be commercially produced or "locally designed" for teaching various aspects of the language. Moreover, Oura takes notice of teachers' adapting outside sources that they find useful for promoting learning. Specifically, implementing authentic materials is among teachers' selection to help incorporating "the real world context" into the lessons to better their teaching students' language learning. While Oura just raises an idea about varying the sources in ELT, Gordon (2006) elaborates more on this need by giving critical comments on EFL textbooks. Gordon asserts most EFL/ESL teachers have been dissatisfied with materials and/or textbooks comprising of unnatural communicative situations of the language, partly because "the vast majority of ESL material is written based on the material writers' personal preferences, instituitions and predictions about linguistic performance instead of actual behaviour" (p.1). Although there is a slight overgeneralization in Gordon's perception, this viewpoint somehow reflects a demand that ESL textbooks need supplementing by other sources which expose students to more natural and authentic language. The above opinions put forward a demand for diversifying ELT materials beyond the boundaries of the given textbooks or course books, explicitly extending to authentic sources outside the classroom. For that reason, this paper subscribes to material diversity and focuses on using authentic materials in the following parts. 5